Tuesday, January 22, 2008

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (January 22 ,2008) – Even six years after the Bosnian authorities extradited six Bosnian citizens of Algerian origin (the so-called Algerian Group) to the US Government, after which they were transferred to the Guantanamo Prison Cuba, there are more questions to be answered than ever, the Wilmer Hale company lawyers, representing the group, stated.

”We have been trying to force the US authorities to present the evidence in court which will explain why these people were arrested”, Robert Kirsch, a lawyer from Boston, told Bosnian media.

He added that the US Government has been refusing to present any evidence whatsoever against these Bosnian citizens, which made Kirsch convinced that there are no evidence at all.

Lawyer Kirsch is of the opinion that nobody in Bosnia wants to thoroughly analyse the issue and added that the Bosnian government act the same way.

”Have the prosecutors ever explained what evidence served as motif for those arrests”, lawyer Kirsch asked and added “the chief prosecutor in this case was Medzida Kreso, present Bosnian State Court President. Marinko Jurcevic, present Bosnian Chief State Prosecutor, was Head of Federal Prosectuor’s Office in the time of those arrests”.

The US lawyer asked how come that neither of the parliamentary commissions called Jasminka Putica, judge in the case, to announce numerous mysteries that lie hidden around this case, including the way the case was prosecuted.

”How is it possible that a person leaves judiciary profession and keeps rejecting any kind of conversation on the issue, keeping in mind that she knows all the details”, the US lawyer said.

He also added that the criminal report has been submitted to the prosecution against the persons responsible for the illegal arrest of these six people. He added that no steps have been taken related to the processing of the case, for “any kind of serious investigation would reveal the shameful involvement of the past prosecution and court into the case”.

Since the Bosnian authorities did not react to numerous calls for liberation of these six Bosnian citizens, the Wilmer Hale team of lawyers initiated a lawsuit against Bosnia at the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg.

After a preliminary data exchange it is expected that this lawyer company will propose a concrete amount of monetary compensation in March Bosnia will have to pay for illegal extradition and all the consequences that followed after that.